Burlington, Mass. - Five years after Bill Gates predicted spam would be eradicated, it remains a major problem for computer users as spammers have focused increased attacks on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter during the last quarter, according to a report from IT security firm Sophos.

At the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates declared that spam would be "a thing of the past" within two years.

But as social networking sites have become part of many computer users' daily routine, spammers and malware authors are increasingly breaking into users' accounts and taking advantage of trusted social networks.

Last November, Facebook won an $873 million judgment against a Canadian man who bombarded millions of Facebook members with unsolicited spam messages.

The spammer tricked users into revealing their passwords and usernames, and then used the information to gain access to their personal profiles.

Related Links:
http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2009/01/dirty-dozen.html